


(sub)conscious

by theficisalie



Series: Desert Heat [5]
Category: Bandom, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-20
Updated: 2012-03-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 05:52:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/365647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theficisalie/pseuds/theficisalie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gerard's mouth is caked with dust when he wakes up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(sub)conscious

**Author's Note:**

> beta: [restlesslikeme](http://restlesslikeme.livejournal.com)

_**You are happy.** _

_I am happy._

_**You are a productive citizen.** _

_I am a productive citizen._

_**Have you taken your pills today?** _

_I have taken my pills today._

_**You are comfortable.** _

_I am comfortable._

His upper leg twitched. _**You are comfortable and warm**_. His upper leg twitched again, more violently. It tensed up, making his left foot dig into the muscles of his right thigh. Something hard hit his back, striking the rounded curve of his spine.

_**You are a productive citizen of Battery City. You are comfortable.** _

_Not really, right now. Is there an earthquake?_

_“Party.”_

_There isn’t actually a party, but thanks._

_“Party.” **You are surrounded by warmth.** Yes, it’s actually a bit too warm, would you mind turning it down? **You are happy.** Well, I’d be happier if you’d pay attention to me._

He was in a white room. “What’s that noise?” he asked, to nobody in particular. His voice was soaked up by the walls, didn’t bounce back into his ears like it should have. _**You are back in the City.**_

“Who said that?”

There wasn’t anybody on either side of him. There were no doors, or windows, no ceilings or floors. “What the fuck is happening here?” Back in the City? Battery City? But he’d left the City for the desert, hadn’t he?

The walls rippled.

_“Poison, wake up!”_

“But I’m not...asleep...” Gerard looked down at his arms. He was wearing a white t-shirt and white pants. No socks or shoes on his feet. He wiggled his toes experimentally. His shoulders and neck were tight, he rolled them back but nothing seemed to fix the ache spreading through the muscles there. When he reached his fingers up to knead the spot, he couldn’t feel his fingers on his neck.

_**You are warm.** _

He was too warm. He was hot. But the material he was wearing was quite thin. He looked down at himself again, and saw something strange. Blood was seeping through the material on his chest. There were rivulets of it, streaming down from his shoulders and dripping down the lengths of his fingers. It didn’t dirty the ground, but his pants were blossoming blood as well, and his shins were _burning._

_“Party Poison!”_

That was his codename. The name of his gun. He didn’t have a gun, though. Didn’t he usually wear a jacket? Or at least, a different-coloured shirt? He tugged at his collar. The low-pitched drone around him was from something.

_**You are lucky to be alive.** _

Better Living Industries. He’d heard one of these, that’s where the voice was from. It was that woman, the one in their commercials...

_“Wake! Up!”_

He had to be sleeping. This was all a dream. Something tugged on his shoulders, and as he jerked to the side to get rid of it, his heart sped up and forced him _out_ -

and into his body.

“Shut up,” he hissed, blinking rapidly. His eyes were sticky again, crusted. He couldn’t feel much of his hands, but he could feel the sickly warmth of the blood dripping down his arm. He twisted his hear to look at the mottled black and blue skin. His legs were stretched out in front of him, and there was little feeling in them aside from the constant burn in his shins. The floor was dusty beneath him, and when he looked up, he saw the desk. The radio desk.

He was still in the shack.

That meant that the cords running across his chest were tying him to “Thriller?”

The body behind him breathed a long sigh. “You’re awake,” a voice cracked.

“Yes,” Gerard muttered. “What happened?”

“I woke up like this,” Thriller said, keeping his voice low. “They had that...that thing playing,” he spat. “You wouldn’t wake up, and it just kept going.”

Gerard tilted his head to the side at a slight angle. “Hm. Back to back. That’s probably symbolic,” he muttered under his breath, “a poetic picture meant mostly for me, I’d expect. They took me,” he said, louder.

“Are you...”

“Bruised? Beaten? Yes.”

Thriller let out a choked sound. “What information did they try to get from you?”

Gerard frowned. The motion made his head spin, so he relaxed his face. “Nothing. What...Thriller, what did you tell them?”

“They tortured me,” Thriller said, his voice the scratch on a broken record. “They pounded at me like I was nothing more than meat. It’s hard to count days in here, I was unconscious a lot. When did you last see me?”

“Two weeks,” Gerard said.

“They only stopped three wakes ago. After I...”

There were no sounds for a few minutes. Gerard could feel Thriller’s breathing picking up, catching in his chest, could feel the man’s shoulders squeezing together despite the pain probably blooming near his neck. “F-fuck,” he said, his voice breaking with unheaved sobs. “I...I d-didn’t...I wish...I didn’t know...I wish I didn’t k-k-know anything...”

 _It’s okay_ , Gerard thought. But it wasn’t. So he remained silent.

“He only asked about you,” Thriller said, when his breathing had calmed down, though Gerard could still imagine tears pouring down his face, dripping down the bridge of his nose like the blood he could see on his.

“He doesn’t know about the Rats, then.” It was hard to force his voice out in a normal lilt, but Gerard swallowed past the pain in his throat. “What does he know?”

“Diners,” Thriller said. “I told him you guys hide out in diners and gas stations. He got so fucking angry when I said that, I...shit, it was scary.” He stopped, heaved in a few choking breaths. “And he...h-he said he _already knew that_ , and if I didn’t tell him something useful, he’d k-kill me. He thought I was j-just a player.”

“What does he know?”

Thriller let out a sigh. His voice, when it came out, was small. Defeated, beaten and ashamed. “He knows that you’re brothers.”

Gerard closed his eyes and let the humming wash over him even as the door creaked in the background of his consciousness.

“Oh, so we’re all friends now?”

**_You are lucky to be alive._ **


End file.
